Read Infinite (Strange and Beautiful, Book 1) for Free Online Page A

five days. Because it was pretty much a disaster any
time I had skis on my feet, I spent most of my time playing in the snow, making
snow families or snow angels, with then seven-year-old Tatum or getting my butt
kicked at checkers, by the fire in the lodge, by then nine-year-old Tanner.
    But, alas, after spending four consecutive weekends with the
Tylers, Mom decided I needed to spend the weekend at home. A normal teenage
girl probably would have whined and complained and begged and pleaded to spend
the weekend camping with her best friend, but it was pretty much decided that,
normal, I was not. Also, I knew my parents would say no anyway, so I didn’t
bother to argue even though, aside from practically salivating over the idea of
a s’more, I really wanted to go camping with the Tylers.
    Instead I sat at home on my rump and reread Harry Potter and
the Half-Blood Prince for the umpteenth time. I was of the opinion that
J.K. Rowling really needed to get the next and final book out already. I’d
nearly wet my pants when I finished Half-Blood Prince and was in
complete denial about a certain character’s death. I’d spent too many nights to
count online reading theories about how the series would finally end.
    When I first started reading the Harry Potter series, I
used to pretend that I was related to Hermione Granger. I thought it was
coolest thing in the world that we had the same last name. I’d accidentally let
this belief slip to my dad, and, because he had no imagination whatsoever, he
ruined it for me by explaining that when our ancestors came to the United
States from France many years ago, they changed the spelling of our last name
from Grainger to Granger. Then, as if to add insult to injury, he had to add
that Hermione wasn’t even real.
    Ouch, way to kill the dreams of an eight-year-old, Dad.
    From then on out I kept my theories to myself, and sometimes I
still liked to pretend that Hermione was my British third cousin twice removed,
or something like that. Even though I had no idea what that even meant. Family
genealogy lingo totally confused me. Why were people removed? It sounded like a
form of disownment or something.
    After spending the majority of Friday night and part of Saturday
morning rereading Half-Blood Prince , I decided to move on to another
book to distract myself from my impatience for the seventh Harry Potter book.
I decided I really wanted to reread another of my favorites, The Perks of
Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky.
    I considered Charlie to be on of my comfort characters, which
were just characters I thought I could have been friends with if they existed
in real life. Never mind the minor flaw that Charlie was a high school freshman
the year I was born.
    It had been a while since I’d read it last, and, because I’d
never been neat and tidy like Mom, my room was what I liked to call “organized
chaos.” Even though it looked like a mess, I usually knew where things were,
but after searching high and low for my copy of Perks , I came to the
conclusion that, aside from maybe needing to clean up some of the chaos, the
book wasn’t in my room.
    I tried to recall where I’d last seen it. Then I remembered I’d
reread it late last spring while vegging out on the couch. Of course I knew Mom
had cleaned the living room many times over since then, so I decided to ask her
if she’d seen it or put it somewhere.
    Mom was in her bedroom doing what she loved to do during her
downtime: scrapbook. Mom had an obsession with documenting everything in
scrapbooks. She had one for each of us—and by “us” I mean Skylar, Luke, and
myself—from every year of school. Then she had them for holidays and other
special occasions. I found the whole thing kind of odd because she never seemed
to stop and smell the roses so to speak, but I guess maybe she was just too
busy and scrapbooking was her way of taking it all in after the fact. Or maybe
she just wanted to do something pretty with all of the